Seven new COVID cases identified in region

Norton Sound Health Corporation identified seven new cases of COVID-19 in the region this week, including two community spread cases on St. Lawrence Island. As of Tuesday, January 26, there were nine active cases in Nome and two active cases in regional villages.
The first two new cases were detected on Tuesday, January 19. One was a Nome resident who was a close contact of a previous case, and the other was a resident of an undisclosed village. Both are currently isolating in Nome.
On Wednesday, January 20, two more Nome residents tested positive. One had recently traveled outside the region, and the other was an NSHC employee who tested positive during routine employee testing. The employee had not had any exposure to patients, according to an NSHC press release.
A third regional resident tested positive on Wednesday in Savoonga. The patient had not traveled recently, and the case was attributed to community spread, meaning that there could be other undetected cases active in the village.
On Friday, January 22, another resident of a regional village tested positive in Nome after traveling outside the region. Later that evening, another regional resident tested positive in Gambell. That patient had also not traveled recently, and the case was deemed the result of community spread.
In response to the community spread cases in Savoonga and Gambell, NSHC has met with local leaders to facilitate community-wide testing. So far, all close contacts of the two cases have tested negative.
Initial vaccinations have mostly stopped in the region, as NSHC awaits a new shipment of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that is expected to arrive sometime next week. A small number of first doses remains available in Nome, however, and second doses are being delivered across the region.
On a regular conference call, NSHC Medical Director Dr. Mark Peterson said 11 village clinics – Elim, Brevig Mission, Golovin, Shaktoolik, Wales, Koyuk, Unalakleet, Stebbins, St. Michael, Gambell and Savoonga – would receive vaccination teams this week to administer second doses.
At this point, most village health aides are also fully trained to deliver Moderna vaccines, he added. Moderna vaccine, which can survive up to a month in the refrigerator instead of the Pfizer vaccine’s five days, will be delivered mostly by health aides going forward.
When the next shipment comes and first doses become available again, Dr. Peterson stressed the importance of education and widespread uptake. “We still want more people, especially Elders, to get in line for the vaccine,” he said. “There are still a good number of people 65 and older who have chosen not to get the vaccine yet, and that’s the group that’s most at risk.”
“Our goal in the next eight weeks is to get the entire region vaccinated as much as we can,” he added. “We’d like to be over 70 percent, that’s our goal.”
Statewide, Alaska has been seeing a slight dip in the number of new cases, as have many states, but experts warn that new variants coming in from abroad or the preemptive easing of restrictions could cause numbers to surge again.
On Tuesday, the state’s Department of Health and Social Services announced that it detected the first case of the B.1.1.7 variant, popularly known as the U.K. variant, in an Anchorage resident who had recently traveled outside the state.
    The variant has been shown to spread more quickly than other versions of the virus, and while the Anchorage patient isolated and had no known close contacts outside their immediate family, it is likely the variant will continue cropping up in the state. The CDC has said B.1.1.7 may become the dominated variant in the U.S. by late spring.
On Tuesday, the state’s Department of Health and Social Services announced that it detected the first case of the B.1.1.7 variant, popularly known as the U.K. variant, in an Anchorage resident who had recently traveled outside the state. The variant has been shown to spread more quickly than other versions of the virus, and while the Anchorage patient isolated and had no known close contacts outside their immediate family, it is likely the variant will continue cropping up in the state. The CDC has said B.1.1.7 may become the dominated variant in the U.S. by late spring.
The Johns Hopkins University of Medicine coronavirus resource center database shows 100,213,452 recorded cases globally on Tuesday, more than 25 million cases in the U.S. and a U.S. death toll of more than 425,000. Because of patchy testing, the actual number of cases is likely much higher, and case numbers worldwide continue to grow exponentially.
Alaska has recorded 53,399 total cases since the start of the pandemic, including 1,185 hospitalizations and 259 deaths. In the Bering Strait/Norton Sound region, there have been 309 positive cases, five hospitalizations and no deaths.

 

The Nome Nugget

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